


The Ptarmigan

by threeparts



Series: Fenny Lavelly and the Art of Shooting People in the Face [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeparts/pseuds/threeparts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Herald doesn't like the snow. She likes it a whole lot less after the fall of Haven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ptarmigan

The Herald can't stand the cold. It was a joke to people at Haven at first, the Dalish elf who had walked out of the Fade with the mark burning on her palm, who people treated as a murderer or a miracle (their perspective often depending just how close they'd been to the Breach), the elf who was told to face down demons and magic hardly anyone understood for the sake of people who called her knife-ear when the green slash across her hand was hidden away... and all she complained about was how cold it got in the southern mountains. The Herald stomped through snow like she had a grudge against it, eyes and nose streaming under layers of scarves, and huddled under one of the few heavy coats they had to spare even in the warm tavern. She glared out of the windows every time a storm brought fresh snow to Haven, as if the weather itself was a personal affront.

It doesn't feel like a joke any more.

The blizzard was a blessing when it first blew up after Haven had been lost, making it harder for the army of Red Templars to dig out the few unfortunate survivors, and masking the tracks of the fleeing Inquisition forces. The flurries hid the bonfires they built each night, the refugees and soldiers huddling around it in groups, taking comfort in the warmth and the presence of others. The survivors were looking to the heads of the Inquisition for guidance as they travelled through the mountains, but the storm also made it impossible to navigate by the sky through the driving snow and the low, heavy clouds. When their Spymaster suggested sending scouts to the lower slopes she was shouted down—they didn't know where the Elder One's forces were, and if the scouts were captured or tracked, they wouldn't have nearly enough soldiers left to defend the civilians. Besides, her scouts hadn't been much use so far, and  _that_ comment from the Commander set off another round of arguing from the main tent.

 

Sera's bow twanged, and another arrow thudded into a tree. "They aren't _doing_ anything. They're walking us around in circles and they know it and we know it, so why don't they just frigging _stop_ it?"

"Because while you know it and _I_ know it, there's a whole camp of people following them who haven't figured it out yet." Varric leaned against the wheel of a wagon as he watched Sera shoot. "They have to pretend they're in charge, so the people who need to believe it can keep going."

"It's _stupid_ ," Sera declared. "We're just running away." Another buzz through the cold air, followed by an angry thump. " _She_ wouldn't have run away."

What could he say to that? The Herald  _hadn't_ run away. They'd all been there in the Chantry, heard about Roderick's path through the mountains, had seen the Herald's face pale when she understood what Curly and that strange kid were saying—that the dragon was after her, so she was the only distraction they had. Her mouth had tightened but she lifted her chin and nodded before calling over her more experienced—or was it more expendable?—fighters and telling them what they must do. She'd given them instructions, as firmly as she could for a woman more used to taking orders than giving them.

“When I tell you to run, you _run_. You get up here, you close the Chantry doors, and you pick up and _carry_ anyone still left up that trail."

"What about you?" the big Qunari had asked. "You planning on fighting that dragon by yourself?"

"I'll be fine," she'd said, and if it was bravado her voice didn't give her away. "There's always a way out. When I see my chance, I'll take it. All we need is enough time."

"So you're _not_ gonna fight it." Iron Bull had sounded almost disappointed, and it was enough to tug a corner of her lips up into a lopsided smile.

"Well, you never know," she replied. "I might get lucky."

_Maybe she did_ , thought Varric, picking at some of the loose threading on his jacket. He hadn't seen. When the dragon's fire had come too close, once too often, she'd shouted for them to run and Varric felt like a coward for being glad to hear it. He and the Tevinter had turned to run, shouting at the Iron Bull to do the same. The Qunari had just been standing there, watching, probably eager to see the dragon up close. He'd come after them then, jogging slowly as he glanced behind, but once they were out the other side of the Chantry, hurrying along the last of the refugees, his mind seemed to be back on the job.

_Going out facing down a dragon's got to have been a better ending than being buried under half a mountainside,_ Varric thought. _More heroic too, though that's probably not going to matter much if we're all buried in a mountain blizzard anyway._

"It's been _days_. They should be gone by now. We should go back." Sera threw her bow down in the snow and went to the tree, jerking her arrows out one by one, cursing at each tug. "Least we could do is burn the ones who didn't make it. They never asked for this, we shouldn't have just _left_ them there." One arrow was buried deep and she pulled hard, then kicked the tree. "It's not _right_ , they came all the way to see her and now she's dead and _they're_ dead, and we don't even know who all of _them_ are so no one knows that they're dead except them, and _they're dead_." She growled and gave up on the arrow, taking the others back to her bow and starting over.

 

She hated the cold. It numbed her, exhausted her, left her sleepy and stiff and wanting to hide under the blankets until the weather started being sensible again.

She felt numb now, although she thought vaguely that she should hurt instead. She couldn't remember why. Her breaths were pale puffs in the air and her eyelids felt weighted by ice. In the dim glow of the mark she could see her right arm, stretched out at an odd angle. Sniffling, she felt cold stickiness on her lips. Had there been a fight? She always seemed to be getting into fights lately. Everything was quiet now though, and she didn't feel sore at all, just drowsy. The cold made everything slow down, seem less real. She didn't know where she was, how she had got there. She just wanted to rest a moment. Then she would see.

The light was brighter when she awoke the second time. The light..? From her hand? No, this light was colder; grey, not green. Her thoughts felt out of place, disjointed, but her body felt less numb. Her ribs ached. What was she lying on? She wanted to go back to sleep, but the ground hurt, stuck into her stomach and chest. Groaning, she tried to roll over, settle somewhere more comfortable. The movement sent a blaze of fire through her shoulder, hot and sudden and shocking, tearing a gasp from her that made her ribs ache in turn.

The pain sharpened her, woke her up out of her slow, drowsy haze, and even as her eyes teared up the room around her came into proper focus. Her head _ached_. The light was coming from above her and she stared upwards. There was snow on the roof, but the roof was just broken planks. She raised her left hand, though the dim glow did little to brighten the... not a room. A hallway? A cave. Her mark. The glove she wore to hide it was gone. Had it been taken off? She groaned again as she remembered the fight, remembered the strange, towering, inhuman figure that had lifted her up like a child's doll and tossed her aside once he found she was of no use. What was he? The details were hazy. The Elder One, the mage that Alexius had worked for. He had given his name, called her mark an Anchor. That was why he had come, to take it. He didn't look like a mage. He'd looked like a monster, shards of red lyrium growing through his flesh, stretching and twisting his skin, glowing in his veins, a body that was all bone and sinew rolled out too long, too tall. He had wanted to go into the Fade? Said he had _been_ in the Fade. He said that he was going to kill her. Had called her his rival. She had released the trebuchet at the last moment and had run, feeling the ground tremble beneath her and... where _was_ she? Pushing herself up on her left arm, she felt her other shoulder protest and the stuff beneath her shifted and creaked. Wood, then. Boards or beams. She must have fallen through something. Not a wall, but the floor? The broken planks. She sat up, her right hand clutching her ribs, her shoulder hot and throbbing even worse than her head. The wood beneath her was splintered, and she murmured a prayer of thanks that she hadn't landed on any of the jagged edges.

She listened through the pounding in her skull, but the air in the cave was still, and if there were people above her they were not making enough noise for her to hear them. The Inquisition's people had gotten out, but had the Elder One's army been buried like they'd hoped?

Her breath wheezed from her sore chest as she climbed awkward to her feet, and a sudden wave of dizziness made the room spin and her stomach lurch. Swallowing hard, she pushed the sick feeling down and realised that she was shivering in the cold air. She'd shed her heavy coat when the fight had started, freeing her arms to shoot and relying on the rush of battle and constant movement to stay warm. Her bow... She looked around for her bow, but there was no sign of it in the dim light. Had she even still been holding it when the Elder One had thrown her aside? Careless to have lost it. Two arrows left in her quiver, three more whole ones in the broken planks beneath her. Not much use for them now, but she picked them up anyway. Just in case.

Her hunting knife was still at her waist, as was the small dagger tucked into her boot. Her clothing was warm, but damp from the snow that had fallen on top of her. She touched the blood on her lips, tracing its source. Her nose, though it didn't feel broken. There was blood in her hair as well, but she couldn't find anything worse than some lumps and scratches. She glanced up at the ceiling above her. A bloody nose, sore ribs and—she rotated her shoulder experimentally and hissed in pain–whatever was causing _that._ A small price to pay for walking away from a dragon and a long fall.

Remembering what the Seeker had once done after a fight with bandits in the foothills, she scooped up a handful of snow and bit into it, the cold wetness numbing her mouth and waking her up. The rest scrubbed the worst of the blood from her face. The cold was probably not a good thing, but it cleared the last of the fuzz from her mind and as she spat out a mouthful of blood and melted ice, she reached for her belt pouch and the elfroot stalks she kept there. The familiar taste was a comfort as she chewed, and she didn't have time to worry about her aches. She turned, examining the icy cave, then headed towards the only exit in the room she could see, her marked hand outstretched before her.

 

"Not the winter vacation I would have chosen, my dear, but if nothing else, we now have the satisfaction of knowing the true face of our enemy.” Vivienne strode ahead of Cassandra, a shimmering golden barrier around her melting the snow as she walked through it, her clothes stained but perfectly dry.

"Yes, but what he _is_ raises another question. A monster, that much is clear, but we do not yet know what kind."

"A monster that was once a man, by the look of him. And who leads an army of men. That may make them more dangerous, but all men have weaknesses."

Cassandra stayed quiet, thinking back. She had not gotten a close look at the creature, but if the Enchanter was right and it _was_ a man, then surely he had been corrupted beyond almost all recognition. The red crystals bursting through his skin looked much like the lyrium statue she had examined in Kirkwall's Gallows and the growths that had sprung up in the ruins where Most Holy had died.

“The Herald said that when she saw the future at Redcliffe, the red lyrium had overtaken it. Perhaps this Elder One is the source,” she said, thoughtfully.

“If that is so, we can assume he has been working towards this end for some years. Varric has been looking into red lyrium since before the fall of the Circles, yes?”

“Yes, and we still know so little about it.”

 

“Thousand years I was confused... champion weakened—no,  _withered_ Tevinter... correct this blighted world...” she murmured to herself as she walked through the endless tunnels. She stuck to the wall, keeping it to her injured right side as she tried to recall all the details the Elder One—Corifis? It was a start, though the name sat strangely on her tongue—had thundered at her.

She had received her education through stories told to her over and over again, each holding a different lesson, each committed to her memory. The Dalish taught through words and actions, and the Dalish remembered. She was _good_ at remembering, and each time she repeated his words they became easier to recall. What she remembered, though, worried her. He had to have been at the Temple if he'd given her the mark—the _Anchor_ , she corrected herself. He had done a ritual there that had gone wrong, accused her of interfering. He'd crafted it... “to assault the very heavens,” she said aloud. He claimed that he had been in the Fade before, a thousand years before, and found it... empty? No, the “throne of the gods” was empty. What throne? Was that an Andrastian belief? Dorian said Tevinters were Andrastian. She would have to ask Leliana. Then the Elder One had wanted to go back into the Fade? He'd spoken of godhood, but people couldn't just become gods, surely? They'd be doing it all the time. Was he mad, or did he believe what he had been saying? He had been angry, she knew that, his eyes full of cold fury.

She shook her head and kept moving, eyes searching the dark. There seemed to be light ahead, but it looked wrong, not like daylight. She stopped and clenched her left fist, hiding the glow from her hand. Yes, light, but an unnatural kind. Her hand twinged as she uncurled it, the sharp tingle she felt when she was close to a rift, but the sensation was stronger now. The Elder One had done something to the Anchor—(and _what_ was it meant to anchor?)—with that metal ball he carried, made it burn red and hot and wrench at her as if trying to tear her hand apart. He'd said the mark was permanent, but had he broken it somehow? She hoped not. If that was a rift ahead, five arrows, no bow, and a hunting knife weren't going to be much help.

 

“It didn't look like any Darkspawn I've ever seen.”

“Oh, yes? Then what do you think it was? A very tall man with a skin condition?”

“Alexius said the Elder One was from Tevinter; maybe one of your demons got loose.”

“ _Our_ demons? I know it must be difficult to believe, but Tevinter doesn't actually hold exclusive rights to producing horrible monsters. Otherwise we'd be invoicing Southern mages every time they go and turn themselves into abominations.” Dorian sniffed. “We might be better at it than everyone else, but only because we've had more practice.”

The Warden snorted and his beard twitched, but he shook his head. “Darkspawn can't talk, let alone lead an army. Gargling at things and pointing are only going to get you so far.”

“Oh, I don't know. _You_ were leading a little militia when the Herald came calling, weren't you?”

 

She leaned against the mouth of the abandoned mine and slid down, drawing her knees up and cradling her left hand in her lap. Whatever the Elder One had done to the Anchor, he definitely hadn't made it any less useful. It had buzzed and burned as she got close to the rift, like a fistful of angry wasps, and as she had gone to draw power from the Fade for the crackling boom that would leave the nearby wraiths stunned long enough for her to slip by, the Anchor had... done something else. Twisted at her, breaking her concentration and... refocusing it. She wasn't sure what had happened, but the explosion had been a sudden relief in her hand and had weakened the wraiths enough that, even injured and poorly armed as she was, they had hardly been a challenge. She had stumbled on, smelling fresh air ahead and staring at the hand stretched out before her.

Now she had reached the end of the tunnel and... where was she? The area around Haven was familiar—she'd explored that part of the mountains for days on end, hunting game and clambering up smaller peaks in between missions: anything to get away from the people always watching her her in the village. None of this looked familiar, but it was snowing too heavily to see the shape of the mountains around her. The light was fading. It had to be around mid-afternoon, and she knew that as cold as it was, it was only going to get worse from here. She could travel down the slope, hope she travelled out of the storm before it was too dark and cold to keep going, or she could stay here in the shelter the caves provided and hope the storm would be over by morning.

The ground beneath her was icy, but she sat there for a few more minutes, letting her body's dull ache wash over her and watching the snow swirl dizzyingly in the wind before pushing herself up and drawing her coat tightly around her. She would see if there was anything she could use as firewood outside as long as she didn't venture out of sight of the cave mouth. There was a flint and steel in her belt pouch—if she could find dry wood, she would be all right.

 

“Only two birds?” The Ambassador's face was creased with anxiety as she and Leliana went over the camp's supplies.

“I grabbed what I could, Josie. We had others, but the cold was too much for them. Poor things.” Leliana wriggled a finger through the bars on one cage, stroking the feathers on a raven's head.

“But only two birds! Do we even know where they'll go?”

“Jader and Ghislain. I know it isn't much, but as we cannot write a message more precise than 'alive, but lost somewhere in the mountains', having more ravens to send wouldn't help anyway.”

“Did you send any messages from Haven, at least?” Josie paced back and forth, clutching her writing board as if it were the only solid thing left in a world gone mad. Which, Leliana reflected, might well be the case for her friend.

“Oh, yes, as many as I had time to write. I just released the others—arriving at their lofts with no message will be cause enough for investigation. And I couldn't leave them there.”

“But without any way of receiving messages we won't know if anyone is searching for us!”

“They will come,” Leliana reassured Josephine. “They will find Haven and see what happened, and then they will come.”

“It could take _weeks!_ It's impossible to tell how far we have travelled, and people are exhausted. We can't keep on like this, not if—”

“The Herald's life bought us time to gather what we needed, and we already have hunters looking for more supplies. People are tired, but we're no longer in any immediate danger. We can take it slower from here.” She smiled brightly at Josephine, “Think of it as an adventure!”

Josephine looked _miserable_.

 

The morning after she woke in the mine, she had found the wind still howling and the snow still falling, but with hunger gnawing at her belly and her pathetic fire long-since burned out, she couldn't just sit there, hoping things would change. She chewed on snow and elfroot as she started walking, quenching her thirst and relieving some of her aches, even if it did little for her hunger. Above the tree-line there was little hope of finding edible plants, and the game up here, whatever it was that lived this high in the southern mountains—eagles? Foxes, maybe?—was unlikely to be surprised by a hunter with only a knife. She cursed herself for not having the foresight to carry a sling. Next time she would be better prepared.

She found the first signs of other people at mid-morning. A broken, iron-rimmed wagon wheel, tossed aside and now half-buried by snow. She didn't know if it had come from the Inquisition's wagons, but whoever had passed through here had done it recently enough that the snow hadn't hidden it. How fast did snow fall? Half a hand a day? A full hand? Not that much, surely. Call it two days, then. She was fairly certain she was travelling north up a ridge line with steep country to either side, so the wheel's owners had not come from the east or west. South was Haven, and if they had gone that way two days past she was not going to follow. North, then.

Pressing on, her legs ached in the pleasant, familiar way that usually spoke of a day scouting for the Clan, navigating the woods and rolling hills of the Marches, loping miles ahead of the aravels, searching for the loneliest paths and most plentiful game. Walking through snow tired her more quickly, but the movement kept her warm. The cold didn't get too bad again until the afternoon, when the cloud-shrouded sun slipped again behind the high mountain peaks, but she had no choice but to press on. The mountains here were too open, the wind too brisk for the snow to settle, and she needed better cover if she were going to stop and rest for the night. The Anchor lit the ground well enough that she would not walk off a cliff in the dark, though it worried her that her gloved hand felt colder than her bare, marked palm.

It was nearly completely dark when she finally skirted the edge of one old rockfall to find a long, steep-sided valley that would block the wind for a night. It was too dark to see how long the valley was, but it was relief enough that it existed at all. She hurried further down, sliding occasionally on icy patches in the snow—and that was odd, it had been so crunchy before—before spotting an outcropping of rock that would block the wind from three sides. She almost gasped with relief when she ducked inside—she hadn't been the first to think of this. A fire pit had been dug here, snow only half a hand deep filling it, and the windbreak had preserved enough tracks that she could make out a footprint here and a deliberately-made snowdrift there, pushed high to block more wind. People had camped here. How many? It was too dark to tell, but the area was large enough for a few dozen people. She wanted to sink down next to the fire pit, eager to rest, but if she did that she would not want to rise again. Wood first, then, if she could find it. They had already had to replace one wagon wheel—perhaps they had left other things as well.

They had. Five bodies lined up neatly together near the cliff edge, lightly dusted with snow. Someone had scratched—no, chalked—a Chantry sun on the rocks above them. A soldier, and four people in regular clothing. The soldier had been young, but the left of her tunic was stained dark with blood. Three of the others had been elderly, the last a child. Two of them had coats on heavier than her own, and she winced and muttered an apology to the stiff corpses as she struggled to peel the clothing off. “Falon'Din's probably already taking care of you, and right now I need this more than you do,” she explained, her own voice sounding strange and lonely on the wind. Dragging the clothes over to the fire pit, she set out again to look for wood, but whatever the Inquisition had burned, they had left nothing for her.

“Wolf shit,” she growled, and pulled one of the icy coats on over her own. Curling up as close to the rocky walls as she could get, she pulled the other coat over herself like a blanket and tucked her marked hand beneath her, the faint tingling her only source of warmth. She tried not to think about the bodies across the canyon. Her stomach had been gnawing at her all day, and with only snow and a few stalks of elfroot left, she knew might be thankful for whoever had drawn that sun marker above the corpses.

The next day she decided to follow the valley, encouraged by faint traces of other travellers still lingering in the snow. It became more of a canyon as it descended, long and winding and easy enough to follow, although her body felt weak and she stumbled every few feet. It was a blessing in the end to nearly turn her ankle on a dip in the ground, leaving her trembling on her hands and knees, her shoulder a long angry hiss of pain at the fall. Evidently startled by the boot at the entrance to its snowed-in burrow, a nug shot past her, its frightened squeal echoing off the rocky walls. The elven hunter reacted faster than she could think, throwing herself forward, face-first in the snow, arms outstretched with one numb-fingered hand wrapped around a hind leg as the nug twisted, kicked and tried to bite her through her glove. She pushed herself up, ignoring the throbbing in her shoulder as she fumbled for her hunting knife, and pressed the struggling creature into the ground as she drew the blade across its throat. Warm blood fountained across her fingers and she sucked it up greedily, grateful for the heat as the nug's struggles came to an end.

She cut the little creature apart, butchering it quick and clean, and chewing the fat late-autumn flesh with deep relief. Nug meat usually disgusted her, but she was long past caring about the taste. Better to be sick from it later than starving now. She ate as much of it as she dared spare, then packed the rest of the meat in the bottom of her quiver, snow on either side. It would keep for now, and if the valley went low enough that she found trees, she might be able to make a proper meal of it later.

She turned back to the burrow and dug around inside with her good arm in case her luck held, but her breakfast seemed to have been the only resident. Already feeling stronger and warmer, she pushed herself up, and pressed on down the valley.

 

“Watching, waiting, too awake, but there is nothing to dream about here. Except mountains.”

The Commander started as the voice accosted him from the darkness, his hand going to the hilt of his sword as he raised his torch higher. “Oh, for the— You again. Why on earth are you up on the wagon?”

“I'm waiting. We all are, but it's hardest for him. It all went wrong, which was _right_ , but in the wrong way, and he wants to warn her.”

“What in Andraste's name are you _talking_ about?”

“It's going to be all right. We just have to wait.”

 

By nightfall there were trees again, tall wispy things with bare branches, rattling in the incessant wind. The sound echoed eerily off the rock walls, a constant din that her leaden mind couldn't block out. She should stop, she thought distantly. Try and collect wood, build a fire. The cold and the wind made it so difficult to think. Difficult to do anything more than put one foot in front of the other. Her pleasant little valley had turned to the east hours earlier and the wind was coming up the sheer-sided canyon, blowing directly into her face. But if she kept going, maybe she would find shelter. If she kept going, maybe she would find people. The wind felt stronger, almost blowing her off her feet and she bent down into it, staggering and stumbling as it only got darker. Her shivers turned to shaking, she bit her own tongue on her chattering teeth, and it was so dark and so cold and there had been no sign of anyone for hours. Had she gone the wrong way? Had she stumbled down a pass others knew better to avoid? All she could do was press on and hope, a scarf wound around her head to fend off the wind that turned tears to ice on her cheeks.

She had never been this cold before, never in her life. The wind blew through her, her coats and scarves no protection. Her face felt numb, her feet, her whole body cold, too cold to hurt, only her marked palm shining brightly in the darkness. She pressed it against her chest and wondered hazily if it would keep burning for ever. If they found her body frozen in the snow, would her palm still be ablaze beside her, melting the snow around it? No. _No_. She wasn't going to die here, not in the cold and the darkness. She had to keep going. She had so much to do. She staggered onward into the wind.

“Mythal protect me,” she croaked, the words comforting and familiar. “Sylaise warm me, Dirthamen guide me and keep me from fear.” She choked on the words and let out a sob. “Guide me, please. I don't want to die here.” She lurched on, her words torn away by the wind as she shook and stumbled and fell. “No... _no_.” she murmured, pushing herself back up. Her shoulder no longer protested, too numb from cold. “Not here. All-Mother please, not here. Not after all this.” she crawled forward, pulling herself through the snow as she tried to gather the strength to stand. “Mamae, please help me.”

She didn't want to die here, lost in the snow, so far from her country and her clan. Not here, with no one to ever find her, no one say the prayers to Falon'Din. Not now, when there was so much still left to do. Would the others know what the Elder One wanted, would they remember about the Empress? She had to tell them, it was important. _I_ _t was_ _important_.

“Dirthamen, please,” she sobbed, dragging herself upright on a rock. “I don't want to be afraid.” Rocks, more rocks, she could feel them in the dark. She pulled herself over them, crawling forward, falling forward, and landing with a thump that knocked the wind out of her. She lay there gasping, trying to draw air back into her lungs. She didn't want to move. She wanted to lie here for a little longer. Just until she regained some strength. She'd keep going. She _would_. But for now, couldn't she just rest? A moment, just for a moment. She felt warmth creeping up from under her, wrapping itself around her. The wind seemed so distant, like it was blowing all around her without touching her. She stared up at the snowflakes blowing overhead, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. Even the back of her neck felt warm now, and wasn't that funny? Shouldn't you feel cold all over if you're dying in the snow? Maybe it was a final gift to feel warm at the end, so that it didn't hurt so much.

She breathed deeply, her chest easing. The scent of warm leather surrounded her, like the halla had worked up a froth in the harnesses. Hahren Luthiel would scold them for pushing the animals too hard. Her eyelids fluttered shut, opened, and shut again. She shifted a little, settling, listening to the wind in the trees above the aravel, sleepy and warm, then gasped loudly as the bare tip of her ear brushed the ground beneath her and _burned_. Not from cold, but from heat. She rolled herself to one side, body moving on instinct rather than command, and her movements disturbed the ground where she had been lying. A spark of red flared in the darkness and she reached out a hand. The ground was warm and soft, yes, because it was a fire pit. A _banked_ fire pit. She yanked back a hand as she disturbed the coals under the ashes. It was still alive—her clumsy fall had dropped her right on top of it and she still hadn't put it out. More alert now after the brief rest, she looked around herself in the green glow of the Anchor. She was in a circle of large rocks, placed too regularly to be natural. Someone had moved these rocks here, close enough that people could sit between them and the pit, and built a bonfire up inside them. Less than a day ago, less than _half_ a day ago. She felt dizzy with elation and exhaustion. She was catching up. She might still collapse and die in the snow, but _she was catching up_.

She knew she should climb back over the stones, try to find wood under the leafless trees and build the fire back up, but all she had the energy to do was to pull off her quiver—and that had been the source of the warm leather smell, the embossing a little scorched from the coals—and bury the remains of the nug in the firepit before curling up almost on top of it and dropping quickly into sleep, breathing out a prayer of thanks before giving herself over to the warm darkness.

That warmth had fled when she woke shortly after dawn, and she felt stiff all over. Her stomach cramped from hunger and she dug the nug carcass out of the dead embers. The flesh was barely cooked and ashes coated it, but the meat was warm and filling. The people who had built the fire had left here half a day before she had stumbled across it in the darkness—perhaps a stop for a midday meal? If it was the Inquisition, then they were moving slowly, probably due to the weak and injured. Half a day ahead. If she pushed herself she might reach them by the time darkness fell. She stood, felt her knees tremble. Half a day. “Creators have mercy, _let me make it.”_

 

_I_ _regret that I_ _must report the presumed death of the bas known to us as the Herald of Andraste._

_The Inquisition base camp at Haven was attacked shortly after dusk on the First of Firstfall by a force composed of several hundred renegade “Red” Templars. The force was under the apparent command of the ex-Templar human male from Kirkwall known to us as Samson, and another individual known as The Elder One. I still cannot expand on the The Elder One's motivations, but I am now able to include a physical description. However, as the individual known as The Elder One was seen from a distance in low-light conditions, I can include few details and I am uncertain of its species._

_The Elder One was also accompanied by what appeared to be a High Dragon. Subspecies unknown. Fire-breathing. Approximately 25 feet tall at the shoulder and 70 feet long, tail included. Two horns on either side of its head, upper right horn broken off near the base. Grey-skinned, with black metal scales or plating along its neck and body, and spikes on its forelegs. It is unknown to me if these are natural or if the dragon has somehow been modified._

_While The Inquisition forces fought well, they were greatly outnumbered. It was decided to evacuate the town while the Herald fought with a small squad through the attackers to The Inquisition's trebuchets, which she would use to create an avalanche to bury the town and the attacking forces. This strategy was suggested by the bas known to us as Commander Cullen Rutherford and supported by the Herald. The bas known to us as Varric Tethras, a newcomer to the Inquisition known as Dorian Pavus of Tevinter (full description below), and I accompanied the Herald to the trebuchets._

_We were ordered to retreat when the Herald signalled, as she did when the dragon came in to land, so I cannot positively confirm her death. As the planned avalanche buried the trebuchets and town of Haven approximately eight minutes later, I find it unlikely that the Herald survived. The High Dragon was seen flying westward shortly afterwards, and I cannot confirm the death or present location of The Elder One._

_I understand that my instructions were to gain the trust of The Inquisition and to prevent the Herald from coming to harm while we studied the effects of the mark on her hand. While I am still in place to complete the former goal, I am aware of the consequences of my failure in the second. The Inquisition has no other known method of closing rif—_

“They found her!” The shouts were distant, from somewhere on the edge of the camp, but they carried. The Iron Bull glanced up from his letter, listening intently.

“They found the Herald! The Commander's bringing her down. They _found_ her, _she's alive!”_ The noise spread through the camp as people left their tents or makeshift shelters to stare up at the mouth of the pass.

Bull glanced down at the unfinished report, ink slowly drying, and murmured, “Well, damn.” He picked it up and folded it twice before dropping it onto the brazier inside his tent. It flared and caught alight as he sauntered out into the afternoon light. A scouting party of soldiers were entering the camp, with a limp body wrapped in the green of an Inquisition cloak cradled in the Commander's arms. Bull leaned against a stack of crates and watched as a healer rushed past him, and his mouth twitched into a smile. “Nice work, Lavellan.”


End file.
